


Why All Those in Charge Are Not Trusted to Drive a Car

by Safaia



Series: No Definition [6]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25396627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Safaia/pseuds/Safaia
Summary: Arthur and Eames have just come off a very tiring job and they would really just like to fuck and maybe sleep for the next 48 hours preferably in that order. Then a bunch of armed men kick down their door to kidnap them and force them to do a job and that just really puts a damper on things.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Series: No Definition [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/15289
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Why All Those in Charge Are Not Trusted to Drive a Car

**Author's Note:**

> Inception fandom I have missed you so. I wanted to try and get a one-shot in for the tenth anniversary of the film and I just love this series so much. I tried to make it as approachable as possible but the main things you need to know is that Eames and Arthur have been together for several years at this point but they don't define themselves as boyfriends or anything. They don't have a definition for what they are hence the name of the series. They have known each other longer than they have known the Cobb's. At one point, they split up out of fear of being used against one another but ended up back together. In the previous fic, Saito put a hit out on all of the involved parties in the inception but they managed to called it off and Fischer forgives them for their part in it and even seems to like them enough to sometimes throw them work. Cobb is presently not speaking to anyone else from the team. The title for this fic comes from a Scouting For Girls song called Three Words. I've missed this fandom. Maybe I should try to write more in it. Enjoy!

Arthur and Eames didn't entirely fall into the door of their apartment, but it was a pretty close thing. Eames knew that they were both quite drunk, but this was far from the first time they had stumbled home like this. They were both very good at stumbling home from all sorts of bars in all kinds of states. Right now, they were in the post-job state of being drunk and a little high on success. Arthur never looked better than when he was loose-limbed like this; when his smiles got easier and when his clothes weren't quite as perfect. It was the side of Arthur that few people got to see, and Eames considered himself so fortunate that he was one of them. He had Arthur pinned against the door with his weight, and Eames wanted to kiss him, but the hallway was probably not the best place to do this.

"Open the fucking door, Eames," Arthur said as they both scrambled with the very complex lock that they themselves insisting on installing. It finally opened, and they both stumbled into their apartment. They were professional criminals, it shouldn't have been so funny to stumble into their apartment like this, but here they were laughing like teenagers. Eames closed the door and pulled Arthur to him. 

"I opened the fucking door, does this mean I can fuck you against the fucking door?" Eames asked as he spun them around and pinned Arthur to the door. He knew that Arthur could get away and was just humoring him, but it was still lovely to feel Arthur's body flushed against his through their layers of clothing. 

"Well, let's see, we've been on a job for the last three months, we've crossed so many time zones we might have actually time traveled, we didn't bother to change before we dropped our bags off to get drunk," Arthur listed off as he licked his lips which was very distracting to watch. "I'm thinking that door fucking might beyond our reach right now." 

"Fine, but tomorrow is a new day that I fully plan on taking advantage of," Eames said as he pulled Arthur into a kiss. They pushed and fought against each other as they made their way across their apartment to the bedroom. Eames wanted to pick up him and cupped Arthur’s backside to do exactly that but Arthur bit him. 

“Eames, I swear to god, if you pick me up I’m breaking both of your arms,” he threatened and Arthur didn’t make idle threats. 

“You ruin all of my fun,” Eames said as they finally got into their bedroom. Arthur must have been in a good mood because he let Eames push him down onto the bed. Arthur leaned back on his elbows and just looked like temptation itself; his perfectly styled hair was a mess, his lips were kissed red, his cheeks were flushed from the booze and their various vigorous makeout sessions as they made their way home, his legs were open, his white button-down was open at the collar with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He was smirking like he knew how good he looked. Eames didn't quite pounce on him, but it was a pretty close thing. 

"We need to reevaluate your no fucking policy on a job when we work with people who know and don't care that we're together," Eames said as he kissed along Arthur's jaw and could feel his stubble coming in. It felt divine. Eames knew better than to leave any marks on Arthur's neck, but, like every time they slept together, he was so tempted to bite down on that pale flesh. 

"Yusuf would find some way to poison us, and Ariadne would purposely find some way to kill us in some horrifying maze that she built," Arthur replied, and he sounded a little breathless. It was true that the last couple of jobs they had done was done with most of the crew that did inception, including the former mark of said inception. Robert Fischer had a lot of enemies with secrets, and as long as they stayed out of the way of Saito, who had previously tried to kill them all to prevent any evidence of the inception from leaking, he was going to leave them alone. It was the one person that was refusing to even talk to them that was bothering Arthur and Eames. 

Two years earlier, when Saito put the hit out on all of them, the only way to get the information to keep Saito from killing them was to perform an extraction on Cobb. He didn't take it well and threatened to shoot any of them if they showed their faces. So, two years later, as far as Eames knew, Cobb was still alive with James and Phillipa pretending that none of them existed. He was close to Cobb in another life, and the thought that the man could just cut them out of his life was irritating. 

This latest job had gone well, and now they were here in New York to rest while Ariadne went back to Paris and Yusuf to Mombasa. Arthur rolled his hips, which was an incredibly effective way of bringing Eames back to reality. Arthur was smirking like he knew that Eames was just a little lost in his head, and that was the thing that brought him back. It was a dirty move, but Eames wasn't known for clean games either. He took both of Arthur's wrists and pinned them to the bed as he leaned over him. 

"Darling, do we need to be anywhere tomorrow?" Eames asked because he wanted to know if they could stay in this bed for the next twenty-four hours and not have to worry about anything.

"Nowhere important," Arthur replied with a smirk. Eames released his wrists, and the two of them began to get out of their clothes quickly. Eames was glad for it because he was barely sure he hadn't changed in three different time zones, and they both probably needed showers, but there was no possible way that was happening tonight. As it was, they had to stop undressing to touch and kiss each other. Eames didn't care how long he'd been sleeping with Arthur; he never ever stopped craving him like a drug, like dreaming. 

They finally threw off the last of their clothing, and Eames managed to find the small bottle of slick that he kept in the pocket of his jacket. Arthur rolled his eyes like he didn't know it was there and like they hadn't used it in the first-class bathroom during the second of the three flights they were just on. While fucking Arthur was delightful, Eames just enjoyed touching and watching him. He didn't used to enjoy kissing as much as he did, but ever since Eames started sleeping with Arthur, he couldn't get enough of that mouth. Eames leaned forward and kissed him again as he slipped a finger inside. The stretch didn't take long, and Arthur was a man who was far too impatient to way and didn't mind a bit of burning when it came to fucking. Eames had barely slipped in a third finger that Arthur was biting down on his lip hard enough to bleed. 

"Get in me before I fall asleep, Mr. Eames," Arthur threatened, which was not going to work at all. Eames smirked and pushed into him, watching all of the micro-expressions that went across that absolutely gorgeous face. Arthur had a reputation of being the one in the dreamsharing business that had no emotions and no sense of humor, but Eames knew better. Eames knew that Arthur's sense of humor was dry as a desert, and his wit could cut sharper than any of the many knives he carried at all times. Those pieces were not ones that most people got to see. The Cobb's got to see that version of Arthur and now Ariadne and Yusuf as well, but even then, there was a barrier. Arthur was completely open with Eames, and sometimes it took his breath away. 

They didn't do romance, they never had, and they never would, and right now, it was about chasing a release more than anything else. Eames set a punishing pace as he moved in and out of Arthur and made sure to draw the most beautiful sounds out of his partner that he couldn't get enough of. They were both getting close as Eames wrapped his hand around Arthur and began to finish him off. They knew each other so well that a mutual orgasm was fairly common when they slept together, but they both still looked at each other like they couldn't believe it. Eames pressed their lips together as they came to stop from waking their neighbors again. 

Eames broke their kiss and collapsed on the side of the bed next to Arthur as they both tried to get their breath back. It was late, or early Eames couldn't really tell, and now that he was properly fucked out, the last thing in the world he wanted to do was move. Arthur, always prepared, reached into his end table and pulled out a package of wet wipes that they had started keeping there for precisely this occasion. 

"Here you go," Arthur said as they both used a few wipes to get rid of the work of their stink and the various bodily fluids. By the time they were both done, they weren't exactly clean, but they were a fuck ton better than they were five minutes ago, and Eames didn't have to go get a wet face cloth. 

"I'd praise your genius for putting those next to the bed, but I wouldn't want your already overly inflated ego to get any bigger," Eames said as they pulled out the sweatpants and underwear that they kept near the bed just in case neither of them wanted to move. Arthur had drilled it into Eames' head that they couldn't sleep naked anywhere, and he was inclined to agree with the things that Arthur tended to insist on. They were both settled within minutes as Arthur turned off the light in the room. They didn't cuddle, but they never did though they did sleep close enough that Eames could feel the heat coming off of Arthur's body, so he always knew he was there. 

+++

It was never a good thing when an alarm woke Arthur up, but that was the thing that immediately pulled him from sleep just a few hours later. He pulled out his phone and checked the security system on the building, which was rigged to go off if someone that wasn't recognized by facial recognition came through the doors. He pulled up the feed and saw nothing, which was strange. This system was not a system to give him false alarms. Arthur reached over and shook Eames awake without looking away from the camera. 

"What happened?" Eames asked clearly, half asleep. 

"The alarms went off," Arthur replied, and that was enough to wake Eames up. He looked over Arthur's shoulder as he tried to find something that would tell him why this was happening. He typed a code into the settings, and the glitch that someone put into his system appeared. The camera that showed an empty hallway right outside their door now had half a dozen men in it. They were armed and just about to smash the door open. 

The wood splintered, but Arthur wasn't really paying attention to it. He reached into his dresser and found one of his guns and watched as Eames did the same. He could hear the men making their way toward their room, and before long, they were coming in. Arthur aimed for the weak spots in standard body armor, but it appeared that this armor didn't have very many. The men he hit stumbled back, but they didn't bleed, and they didn't die. That was when Arthur noticed that they didn't have standard guns but what looked like tranquilizer guns, which meant they weren't here to kill them but to take them alive. That was worse. 

"Eames," Arthur said as he tossed his gun to the side. There wasn't any getting through that armor, so his fists were going to have to do the trick. "Alive." Eames knew what that meant; these people were here to take them alive. Three men rushed Arthur as they tried to shoot him with their guns. He held up a pillow to block the needles and kicked out to one of the men. There was the satisfying crack and pop of a dislocated kneecap, and the man cried out as he went down. They had batons on them, and Arthur quickly took one from the man who just went down. He cracked it against the helmet of the man hard enough that the plastic cracked, and he still went down. 

Eames had his own belt in his hand and was using it to strangle one of the men and use him as a human shield. The body went limp, and Eames kicked the man out into his two friends. The two men stumbled, and Eames grinned as he went at them again. Eames fought like a boxer, and one punch from him sent one of the men back several steps. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur watched as Eames got one of the men in a chokehold, and there was the sound of a neck-breaking. The man dropped as Arthur collapsed the windpipe of the second man that was attacking him. The man gasped, and one solid bunch to the chin was enough to knock him down. The final man ran at Arthur, who easily sidestepped and threw him through the wall. He went directly into the plaster, and he didn't move. Eames managed to get his hands on the last man and threw him into one of their dressers, splintering the wood. 

This place was beyond compromised.

Arthur looked at Eames, who was breathing hard. They both had some scrapes and bruises, but it didn't look like either of them got hit with the darts, and that was what mattered. Eames nodded, so he was fine, and they both quickly pulled on t-shirts as they rushed to get out of the room as fast as they could. Arthur grabbed the PASIV and checked the feed on his phone; there weren't any more people in the hallway, but that could change. He walked out into the living room and felt something move behind him. Arthur blamed it on jetlag and being tired, but he wasn't able to stop the needle from going into his neck. Arthur knew what many different drugs felt like, but this one made his entire body go numb in seconds. He collapsed to the ground and knew that he couldn't move. He wasn't even sure he could breathe, and Arthur had no way to warn Eames. 

He couldn't move his eyes, but from his spot on the ground, he saw two shoes move around, and another body hit the ground moments later. They both really needed to sleep more after jobs and preferably in safe places. Then again, Arthur thought that their apartment was a safe place, and he wanted to fucking know how someone got past his security. There was the sound of a phone ringing and a male voice murmuring. Arthur realized that at the very least, he appeared to be still breathing, but he was furious. He wanted to wring the neck of this person that broke into one of their safe houses and ruined it. 

The man walked toward Arthur again, and he tried to lash out, but his body wouldn't cooperate. He was too numb to feel the second needle go into his skin, and Arthur fell into darkness. 

+++

Everything came back to Eames slowly. The first thing he realized was that his feet were cold, which was strange. Arthur kept the apartment cool, but he never held it cold enough that his feet ever got cold. Then he realized that he couldn't feel the heat from Arthur's body next to him. That didn't mean much, Arthur was an early riser even when they were recovering from jetlag. It was the fact that he wasn't in a soft bed but the cool floor that finally made Eames open his eyes. The lights blinded him on the ceiling, and it took far more effort than it should have to block the light with his hands. That light didn't look like any light in their apartment, and then everything came rushing back. Eames remembered that they got jumped somehow. He remembered getting rid of all of the attackers and watching Arthur walk out of their room out of the corner of his eyes. Eames saw Arthur fall to the ground, lifeless, and he panicked. 

Whoever was waiting for him drugged him up with something, and now he was lying somewhere, in a ratty t-shirt and sweatpants and nothing else, with no fucking clue what was going on. Eames managed to turn his head and saw Arthur lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, blinking slowly. It took a few tries, but Eames managed to get his mouth working. 

"What happened?" he asked. 

"We were jumped," Arthur replied, but his voice was a little slurred like when they got the bad batch of Somnacin . "They drugged us with something, and now we're in this room. The floor feels like concrete, so it's either a basement or a bunker. I'm inclined to think in the basement because there is a window with no glass just over there. It's recently painted white to be as annoyingly bright as possible. There is a metal table to our left with two chairs on one side and three on the other. I can't hear anything outside, so wherever we are is either abandoned or doesn't have a lot of foot traffic. There is a camera in the right southern corner that is presently recording us, how do you fucking do assholes, and it's not a model that is available on the market. However, it's not a model that is recent either." 

"Not available on the market but not recent says we're on some sort of military of government base," Eames said, and he closed his eyes as he listened. He could hear a few people talking, but there didn't appear to be anyone nearby. He also couldn't hear anyone screaming or begging for mercy, which didn't always mean anything. Right now, Eames just felt a little dirty from the wet nap shower and sweating through his clothes from the drug. "Can we move?" 

"I'm regaining the ability. I think it'll be out of our system in the next ten minutes," Arthur said, and he looked over at the camera. "Make the red light blink twice if I'm right." Eames snorted a laugh and looked at the camera. The model seems familiar somehow, but he wasn't sure when he could have seen it. Instead, they passed the time by loudly being as vulgar as possible and describing their sex life with as much detail as possible as they waited for the drugs to wear off. There wasn't any use in hiding it; they found them quite literally in bed together. 

Ten minutes later, they were both able to stand, and Eames cracked his joints; he heard someone coming toward them. He raised an eyebrow at Arthur, and they took what he guessed was their designated seats at the metal table. Eames, however, was notoriously a little shit and put his bare feet up. Arthur, meanwhile, began to balance the chair on two legs like this was the most boring thing in the world to him. They waited until the door opened and three people walked in. They were all dressed in decent clothing, but it wasn't anything particularly nice. They weren't in uniforms, but Eames could see the government written all over these two men but not quite the women. They looked older than them by at least a decade save for the woman and sat down across from them. 

"So, what do you want?" Arthur asked because he was not a man for small talk. Eames smirked when he saw the three people get a bit thrown off that Arthur was the one to break the ice. "Does someone want to tell me why former members of the military have my partner and me locked in what appeared to be an old bunker that shut down about, how many years ago do you think, Eames?" 

"Eight years considering the model of camera," Eames replied, and they both smirked at their baffled expressions. The slightly older man was the first one to get his bearings back, and he smiled at the two of them. 

"Well, I did always hear you two were the best," the man said. "I don't suppose either of you recognizes us since we only met when you were enlisted and when you were discharged, but General Matthew and I were in charge of the Dream Program." There was a pause in the conversation like they were waiting for a reaction to this news, but Eames just smirked while Arthur raised a single unimpressed eyebrow. "I'm Colonel Elliot, and next to me is Dr. Shepard. She was one of the techs that would work on the machines." Elliot paused again like he was waiting for some sort of reaction, and both men looked a little annoyed that they weren't getting it.

"We told the two of you to stay low when you were discharged," Matthew said, and Eames actually laughed at that one. 

"You mean when you legally killed us and said if we didn't keep our mouths shut, you'd put a bullet between our eyes? I remember," Eames said.

"Why are we here?" Arthur said, apparently giving up the pretense. 

"You should be asking what we can do for you," Elliot said. "You're both wanted men, and we can use that--"

"You aren't using anything," Eames interrupted. 

"What?"

"You aren't using anything against us," Eames said. "We've had plenty of people way scarier than you try, and they have failed. Whatever you are going to try and threaten us with, it's not going to work."

"Why are we here?" Arthur repeated only this time he sounded angry. 

"We have a mark," Elliot said carefully. "And you two are going to do the job or--"

"Stop," Arthur said, holding up a hand. "This is not how we're going to negotiate." 

"What?" Matthew sputtered, and now he sounded angry. "We have you in a locked room in the middle of nowhere with nothing on you but the clothes on your back. You don't get to negotiate." 

"Oh, but we do," Eames said, and he was grinning. "You need us, or we wouldn't be here. There are probably half a dozen people who were doing this job that didn't decide to become criminals that you could have gone to, but you came to us because you need the best. I'd imagine that you've had other teams already fail, and now you need us. So, we're going to negotiate because, despite the decor, you're the one's stuck in here with us." 

"Any threats made any friends of ours again will end this negotiation," Arthur said when Elliot tried to speak again. "You cannot and will not threaten the people we care about. I assure you that will not end well for you." 

"--You little shit I--" Elliot tried to say, but Arthur continued like he hadn't said a word. 

"On top of not threatening anyone, you're going to do something for us," Arthur said, and he glanced at Eames. Arthur had a plan, he usually did, and he nodded. Whatever Arthur had thought of this was going to be good, and he trusted him. "The first thing you are going to do is not only completely wipe our criminal records clean but any records of our friends and associates. I assume you know who they all are, so I don't need to name names on camera. If you insist on playing stupid about said names, I will end this negotiation. After you clear all of those records you are going to pay Eames and I all of our back pension pay that you have clearly been pocketing for the last several years. We want all of it, and we want any remaining accounts in our names unfrozen so we can access those funds. Third, if we do this job, you are never ever to darken our doors again. If I see you lurking in a camera of mine, I will put a bullet between your eyes, and I will not hesitate." Arthur let the chair fall back on four legs, and the sound made all three of them wince. "Those are our terms, and they will not change." 

"You cannot expect us to do any of that," Elliot said, and he looked like he wanted to shoot Arthur between the eyes. 

"You need us to do this job," Eames said as he shifted his feet on the table and smiled. "Go along, have a little chat among yourselves, we'll wait for you to agree." Both men looked angry, but Shepard whispered both of their names and all but pulled them out of the room. Eames looked up at the camera that was watching both of them and yawned. "Arthur, do you think we could get out of here?"

"Absolutely," Arthur replied. "But it wouldn't be easy, and we'd probably have to kill a lot of people that got in our way."

"Like the ones that got in our way in our apartment," Eames said with a smirk at the camera, and he cracked his knuckles. Arthur, meanwhile, rolled his shoulders and loudly cracked his neck. They spent the next hour loudly talking about their possible escape plans, some of them fictional and would never work, but they had just enough truth in them to make everyone nervous, and some genuine plans that Eames was wondering if they were going to have to put into motion. By the time the door opened, they had talked about, in extreme detail, the many ways they would be forced to kill everyone in this building to escape and judging by how pale Shepard was and how angry Elliot and Matthew looked it must have worked. 

"Gentlemen," General Matthew said. "It seems we have a deal." 

+++

The first thing Arthur did on top of all of the other demands he made was for some actual clothes. He wanted something other than sweatpants, and if this was the government, then the least they could do was give him a pair of god damn jeans and a pair of shoes. Elliot frowned but sent someone off to get them clothes. It was time to go see this mark and what exactly the military wanted them to do. Arthur looked around as they were walking and realized that this base wasn't just old; it was rundown like it wasn't in use anymore. There was personal, but they didn't look like army members. Instead, they looked like hired guns and like they wanted to put a bullet through his and Eames heads. Arthur could only assume it was their friends that were bleeding into the carpets of his safehouse. 

They turned around a corner, and there was what looked like a hospital room. There was a man in simple clothes hooked up to an IV. He was asleep, but he didn't look like he was unconscious. The first thing Arthur noticed was the track marks on his arm. So he was right, there were multiple attempts to do this job, and they had failed. That was the main reason, they were here right now; they needed the best. The man looked familiar, and Arthur raised an eyebrow when he realized who it was. 

"So, why is Jeffrey Rushman, one of the richest men in the world, doing in your base?" Arthur asked. "I haven't heard about him missing, and I feel like it would be all over the news if he was." 

"Rushman is here because we need him, and he's the mark," Elliot explained. "You two are going to perform inception, and you're going to tell him to refund starting the program." Arthur froze because he knew he couldn't have heard that right. 

"No," Eames said without a moment of hesitation, and Matthew looked furious.

"What do you mean, no? We gave in to all of your fucking demands, so now you need to do the job. You've done it before," Matthew snapped. 

"Barely," Arthur said as he narrowed his eyes. "And it took weeks of careful planning with a rather large group of highly specialized people. Even then, we all almost died because the mixture was wrong, and the only reason the two of us aren't braindead is pure luck. We don't do jobs based on luck anymore." 

"Then I supposed we have no reasons to meet your demands or to keep you alive," Elliot said, but Matthew held up a hand. 

"Neither of you wants to die, I can tell, so what's going on here? Why won't you do the job? You have to know we'll kill you," Matthew said. 

"Because it cannot be done no matter how many guns you put to our heads," Eames said with a shrug as he looked around. "So, you want to restart the program. That is going to take some considerable funding." 

"That it will," Arthur said as he watched Rushman sleep, and judging by the stubble on his face he'd been here for four days already and Arthur guessed one of the richest men in the world wouldn't be able to vanish for more than a week without people noticing. "So you need money, we do jobs for people who want money all the time, and we do it through extraction and not inception." 

"Exactly," Eames said, clearly following the line of thinking that Arthur was having. "Men like Rushman have their fingers in so many pies, but usually there is one above all else. We figure out where most of his money goes to and why and then you can tailor your approach to appeal to Rushman, so he invests." 

"Will that work?" Shepards asked. "We've had a few teams go into his mind to perform the inception, and it never ends well for anyone." 

"Yes, I'm assuming not, you should let me know who's number I should delete from my phone and where the bodies are buried for their loved ones," Arthur replied and all three of them tensed which was all the proof Arthur needed that there were some dead dreamers nearby. That wasn't a good thing, and the idea that so many of them were killed could only mean that the jobs went badly for a reason. However, Arthur also knew that he and Eames had dealt with some of the most volatile minds, and ever a billionaire didn't frighten him. "Extraction is the only way you're going to get your funding, or you should just shoot us both and throw our bodies in that grave with the rest. An inception would take too long, and I'm guessing you're under a time limit before the world realizes that one of the richest men alive is missing. Inception takes time, precision, which we do not have. So it's your choice; you do the extraction and get your funding, or you shoot us and add our bodies to the mass grave." Shepard looks at Elliot and Matthew imploringly like she was begging them to take the deal and say that extraction was going to be good enough. 

"Fine," Matthew said as Elliot sneered. "We'll do the extraction." 

"Great," Arthur said. "Now, you're going to get us those clothes, shoes, and we're going to sit down and watch you clear our files before we do anything else." He smirked as Elliot and Matthew once again looked like they wanted to argue, but Shepard shook her head. She was young, maybe she was an intern during the original program, and she clearly really wanted to get it off of the ground. 

"I'll go check on those clothes," Elliot said through his teeth as Eames smirked. It was time to get to work. 

+++

The clothes weren't much, and the room they were given to sleep in was two barely held together cots, but Eames felt more like himself now that he was working. Eames was looking over the people in Rushman's life as Arthur loudly argued with Shepard about the Somnican and how they were both refusing to use anything that she made. Arthur said they could either get the stuff he wanted delivered, or they could all go fuck off. Shepards was angry, but the hired guns in the room looked like they were about to go off the deep end. Shepards agreed only if she watched Arthur put in the order. Even if she did, she wouldn't know the codes that Arthur would use to warn Yusuf to go dark and pass along the word to Ariadne and maybe Fischer. Saito was on his own as far as Eames was concerned, and they had done enough getting his record wiped clean as it was. 

Arthur sat down at the table with Eames and glared at the hired guns who glared right back. Eames smirked and wiggled his eyebrows at the men. They wanted to fight, and if he had to be the one to provide it, then he would be. 

"The previous teams all just so happened to leave their research," Arthur said, which was more implications that all previous dreamers who had tried to do this job were dead. It was given to them to streamline the process and move these things along. They apparently only had three days to do this job, and that was not a lot of time. Eames knew he couldn't perfect a forge that fast, so they were going to have to go in as themselves. Arthur looked through the folder and then tossed it over his shoulder, sending the papers in all directions. Shepards walked in just as it happened. 

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked as she set down a computer for Arthur to message Yusuf with. Yusuf could get them Somnacin within the next 48 hours when he really needed to, and once Arthur used the right words, he would. 

"Throwing useless shit away," Arthur said. "You kidnapped us to let us do our jobs, so let us do our jobs." Shepard looked angry but stood by and watched Arthur send the message to Yusuf. She didn't see the code, of course, and the Somnacin would be here in two days, as Yusuf said in his reply. There was also the indication that he was going dark from now on. Shepard huffed and walked out of the room as Arthur did his research, and Eames began to design the level. The hired guns, however, decided that letting them work in peace was not on the table.

"You two fuckers killed six of our mates," one of them said. Eames could see Arthur bite his tongue, and he even knew what Arthur would have said; if you don't shut up, I'm going to kill six more. Eames shook his head, and they both went back to ignoring the hired guns. They weren't about to let that pass through. They walked over and shut Arthur's laptop hard enough that it nearly broke. 

"Gentlemen, I'm trying to do this job so I can get the fuck out of here," Arthur said through his teeth. 

"It looks like you're being useless," one of them said as the other snatched the notebook that Eames was working on designing the maze. 

"This is all this dream shit is? Making up little puzzles?" the other said as his friends laughed. "I wonder if your friends are more useless than you two are." 

"You want to walk away," Eames said darkly, but the men thought their guns were enough to protect them. 

"There's what girl in Paris, right?" the one who closed the laptop and Arthur fists clenched so hard that Eames knew he was cutting into the skin of his palms. "Which one of you is she fucking? Is it either of you? Oh, that's right, you're fucking each other. So on top of everything else, we have two faggots--" Whatever the man was going to say was cut off when Arthur broke his jaw. Eames quickly snatched back his notebook and broke the arm of the man who had taken it. They were outnumbered, but they were used to going up against drones of mindless men. This was no different than fighting projections, and Eames didn't care how many bones he broke. 

However, he had only taken down a second man when Matthew and Elliot appeared with a wide-eyed Shepard. 

"What the fuck is going on?" Matthew demanded. 

"They tried to take our guns," one of the mercenaries said, but Arthur spat a mouthful of blood at him. 

"Tell your men that the next time they threaten our friends, we won't go easy," Eames said, and he could tell this was the moment they had pushed Elliot and Matthew too far. He was expecting a beating, but they were allowed to go back to work for the rest of the day, but both men and Shepard stayed close and quietly talked to each other. They were escorted back to their room, and the door was closed for all of a second before it was open again, and the mercenaries came back in. This time they had clubs, and Eames knew this wasn't going to end well. He still fought, and so did Arthur, but it still ended with both them bloody and bruised on the floor. Elliot walked in and looked down at them. 

"Gentlemen, I hope this reminder serves its purpose to remind you both that you aren't the ones giving orders here. Sleep well," Elliot turned and left before Eames could do something really stupid like attack him. There was a small bathroom off to the side, and Arthur managed to push himself to his feet to walk in. He handed Eames a wad of wet toilet paper and sat down to do the same to himself. Eames wanted to reach forward and try to get some of the blood out of Arthur's hair, but he refused to show any sort of affection for his friend in front of these people. Arthur nodded slightly like he understood, and they both went to bed blood and in pain that night. 

+++

By the time the Somnacin arrived, there were precisely two more beatings, and Arthur was ready to kill everyone in the building. His ribs ached, his nose felt like it might be broken, and he had a headache that wouldn't go away. When Arthur pointed out that neither of these things was going to make the job easier, he was told to shut up and do the job—perhaps making Matthew and Elliot as mad as they did wasn't the best idea. At least he got word that Ariadne and Yusuf were both in hiding, which was good. It was one less thing to worry about now that they were in the final stages of the job. Rushman needed to be back in the real world within the next day, and he had stalled as long as he could. There were things he needed to talk to Eames about, but they had no privacy, so Arthur hoped that this would work. 

The day of the job, Elliot and Matthew lurked nearby, and Arthur really hoped that he wasn't going to have to go into a dream and die in it. He didn't want to think about what that would be like. He glanced at Eames, who raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes at all of this. They just needed to get the job done, and they could get out of here. Probably. Arthur wasn't 100% sure that these were men of their word, but he couldn't focus on that right now. Shepards walked out with the PASIV, and Arthur looked at the sealed container that had Yusuf's Somnacin . He knew it wasn't tampered with, so at least he knew what kind of drugs were going into his system. The needles appeared to be clean, too, as they worked to get Rushman hooked up. 

"How long is this going to take?" Elliot asked. 

"We'll jump out when we're done," Arthur replied. "We know how to kick ourselves out of a dream. Are we going to wake up to guns between our eyes and someone about to put us out of our misery?" 

"We had a deal," Matthew said. "You get us the information we need to secure financing, and we have no problem with you two." Arthur didn't believe him, but there wasn't time. 

"Shall we?" Eames said as they both settled down on the beds next to Rushman. Shepards walked over and looked at the two of them like she wanted to pick them apart and know everything about them. This girl was ambitious, and the program under her would be a terrifying thing that Arthur really didn't want to see. He didn't have a choice, though, and glared at her as she hit the button. The chemicals rushed through his system, and Arthur felt the world around him fade away. 

When he blinked again, Arthur was standing in one of the standard city's that Eames would use for smaller jobs. However, it was fairly clear that the projections were already getting twitchy, which is what Arthur suspected. Despite how much he looked, he couldn't find proof that Rushman was militarized, but the look these projections were giving him was all the proof he needed that something was going on here. Eames tensed but didn't say anything. They knew where Rushman was, and all they needed to do was get to him. 

"What odds did you put it at that Rushman was militarized, and they weren't telling us?" Eames asked as they walked carefully through the city. The projections weren't hostile yet, but Arthur could feel their eyes on him as they walked. 

"At least 80%, but I wanted to be sure myself," Arthur replied. "We need to talk to Rushman, though, because I have a plan that I think is going to work out for all of us provided these people let us walk out of here alive." 

"I think I know what kind of plan this might be," Eames said, and he knocked their shoulders together with a grin. "I trust you." That was all Arthur needed to hear because it set his nerves a bit more at ease. He didn't like going into jobs without knowing everything like this, and it just made things so much harder for everyone involved. 

They got to Rushman's office, and it was pretty easy to bullshit their way into the room. A few smiles and Eames pulling some papers and a perfectly forged ID out of nowhere was all that it took. Rushman looked up when they walked in the door and narrowed his eyes when Eames locked it behind them. They both took a seat in front of him as the projections outside started to get even more twitchy. They weren't going to have long to pull this off, and Arthur really hoped that they could. 

"Something isn't right here," Rushman said. 

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," Arthur said easily, but he smiled. "We're here to have a discussion about the various projects you put your money into and what you're funding. We think we might have another option for you." 

"I don't trust either of you," Rushman replied, and the projections outside were all but about to break down the door soon, but Eames seemed to catch on as to what was going on. "Is this a dream?" 

"Darling, we know all about dreams," Eames said.

"That we do, and we have something we really need to talk to you about," Arthur said. 

+++

Eames was frankly surprised that he opened his eyes at all and even more surprised that he didn't open his eyes to someone pulling the trigger on a gun. Instead, he woke up and could hear people around him talking about various things and wanting them to get the job done. Eames glanced to his side and saw Arthur open his eyes as well. They were both okay, and he breathed a sigh of relief for that. At least they didn't get tossed into limbo or worse. Shepards looked over and saw that they were awake. She gestured to Elliot and Matthew, who handed Arthur a notebook. Arthur, the consummate professional that he was, took the notebook and wrote down all of the details they had managed to extract from Rushman, who was still sleeping peacefully. Arthur handed the notebook to Matthew, and he and Elliot began to look it over. 

"Are you sure this information is accurate?" Elliot asked. 

"We are," Arthur replied. Eames climbed out of the bed and helped Arthur get to his feet as well. They were both still sore from the beatings, but at least they weren't dead yet. "If you approach Rushman about funding you instead of funding them, he will accept your terms. He's a smart man, and he wants power just as much as any other rich man. There is power in being able to control dreams, as you two know, and he'll know that. He already knows about dreaming on some level judging from the way his projections acted." 

"Oh, is that so?" Shepards said, and it was such a blatant lie that Eames wanted to roll his eyes so hard they rolled straight out of his skull. 

"Yes, dear, but I imagine you knew that, and it's also why so many of your previous attempts failed," Eames said. "I don't know why you would keep that from us considering that it played a huge role in whether or not we could complete the job. Fortunately, for you, we are used to dealing with volatile minds." 

"All the more reasons we couldn't plan an inception in three days as well," Arthur said as he looked at Matthew. "We've completed the job to your satisfaction levels, so we'll be taking our pensions in cash, and then we'll be on our way." Elliot looked like he didn't want to let them go, but Matthew nodded. He seemed excited like he could already see the piles of cash that Rushman was going to give them once they approached him about reviving the program. 

"Very well," Matthew said, and he waved his hand. The mercenaries appeared, and Eames was about to argue again when he felt a prick in the back of his neck, and his entire body went numb again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arthur collapse as well, and Matthew smirked at him. Eames really hoped that they weren't about to get buried alive because he would have taken limbo over that shit. "We can't risk you two causing a problem while we're moving you." Elliot handed him a briefcase, and he opened it to show it lined with money, just under three million according to Arthur's records, which was everything owed to both of them. "I'd say that I hope this is the last time we see each other gentlemen, but we may need you again in the future. Next time, don't resist, and we won't have these kinds of problems." 

Eames wanted to tell him to fuck off, but Elliot gestured, and Eames found himself being dragged down the hallway. He took in every detail he could with eyes that could barely blink, let alone look around. He tried to take as deep of a breath as possible so he could get some sort of hint about where they were. Eames tried to keep Arthur in his sights, but it was hard. They were both tossed into the trunk of an SUV, which pulled up as they were dragged out. Eames could only see one car, so he didn't think that they were going to separate them. He didn't feel it when the mercenaries threw him into the back of the car, but he was sure there were going to be bruising. Arthur was thrown into his line of sight, and if Eames could breathe a sigh of relief, he would. 

The car moved, and Eames was just starting to get the feeling back in his limbs when the vehicle came to a stop. The mercenaries yanked him and Arthur out of the car and dragged them into a motel that looked like it was about to fall apart. Elliot was just out of the line of his sight and with the briefcase in hand. The mercenaries dropped them onto the single bed, and Elliot tossed the suitcase onto the ground carelessly. 

"If I see either of you again, I'm arresting you and have you tried for treason," Elliot said. "So vanish into your dark little holes, and maybe we won't have to hunt you down." The mercenaries all laughed as they walked out of the room and slammed the door behind them. Eames wanted to groan, but he just looked at Arthur and made an effort to roll his eyes. 

The sun was down, and Eames felt like his stomach was trying to eat itself by the time he and Arthur could get up from the room. He was shocked to find that the money in the case seemed to be real, and there didn't appear to be any tracking equipment on it either. They were both hurt, tired, and just wanted some food and some sleep, but staying in this motel was not an option. 

"We're going to have to steal a car," Eames said as he looked around. They didn't have another bag to put the money into and didn't want to take the briefcase. That meant they had to unload nearly three million dollars in cash into the pillowcases that they were stealing from the motel for lack of a better idea. Eames stuck his head outside and saw a truck down the end of the parking lot. It wouldn't be hard to jump, and it looked like it had been there for a while.

"This is the dumbest thing we have ever done," Arthur said as he handed Eames a pillowcase, and they began to make their way over to the car. "Are you sure we're awake? This is so fucking stupid that I'm inclined to think we're still dreaming." 

"Well, they didn't let us take our totems, and the last thing we need to do is give those people more research," Eames replied as he knelt down next to the car. They had stolen a sewing kit and a wire hanger from their motel room, and it took him almost no time to pop the lock. They threw the bags into the backseat as Eames carefully jump started the car, and they took off into the night. 

"I hope this works," Arthur said after they had driven for a little over an hour. They had stopped for some drive-through food and a cashier who was extremely annoyed by the crisp $100 bill they handed for the food. When the cashier insisted they didn't have enough for change, Eames told the cashier to keep it and buy himself something nice and drove away with their food. He didn't really care; he just needed something in his stomach. 

"Me too," Eames replied. They weren't usually ones to show any kind of affection outside of fucking and occasionally kissing, but this time they reached for each other's hands and held on as tightly as they could. Eames didn't let go of Arthur's hand even after he fell asleep for a few hours, and it wasn't until they traded off that they broke contact. 

"Close your eyes, Mr. Eames," Arthur said. "I'll keep going until I see someone selling a car for cheap that we could trade for cash, and then we'll be on our way home," Eames mumbled and settled into the seat to try and get some sleep that didn't come from a PASIV. 

+++

It turned out they were in New Hampshire, and it took several days to make their way home. They bought burner phones and got in contact with Yusuf, Ariadne, and even Fischer, who all reported that no one had come after them, which was what Arthur wanted. It was quiet, and as he was watching the news a day away from New York City, he saw a gossip report about how Jeffrey Rushman came back from vacation, looking a little rough. Arthur didn't want to think about what they could have come up with, the explanation being out for a week, and he didn't really care. They cleaned out what remained of their safehouse and made it to a new location by the end of the day. Arthur collapsed onto the couch and turned on the TV as Eames settled down next to him. 

"We should take some time off," Eames said. "We talked about doing that after the last job, and then all of that bollacks happened. Now we might actually have some time to relax. Maybe we can go somewhere nice and just gamble and fuck for an entire week. We have the extra cash and everything." 

"Eames, we were never hurting for money, and you know it," Arthur said, but he smirked. He did like the idea of spending a week in bed with Eames, and that is something they hadn't done in the real world in years. He threw his legs over Eames's waist and settled into his lap. Arthur did enjoy those warm and familiar hands at his size. "You want to spend a week in bed with me?" 

"Darling, I could spend a year in bed with you, and it wouldn't ever be enough," Eames said, and to anyone else, it would sound like a line, but Arthur knew when Eames was lying, and he wasn't lying here. Arthur leaned forward and kissed him, hard, and could feel Eames dig his fingers into his waist. Eames opened his mouth, and Arthur licked his way in determined to try and chase all of the bad memories of the last several days out of Eames' head because he could tell that it was bothering Eames. Arthur rolled his hips as they exchanged deep kisses, and they both began to move. Arthur didn't entirely shove Eames down onto the couch, but he did yank Arthur down with him. Eames got his fingers into Arthur's hair, which he knew was a mess, and pulled on it just enough to make Arthur moan against his mouth. 

"We have breaking news coming in right now," a reporter said on the television, and they both broke away to turn and look at the TV. "Two high ranking members of the military and several others have been arrested in a bizarre conspiracy linked to billionaire Jeffrey Rushman." The reporter said, and Arthur smirked as images of Matthew and Elliot being led to police cars in handcuffs flashed on the screen. "Reports indicate General Alex Matthew and Colonel Mark Elliot along with a Dr. Julia Shepards colluded to kidnap Rushman for a week and then attempted to break into his dreams to steal his subconscious thoughts." The flashed to Rushman, giving a press conference. 

"These two men wanted to restart a confidential program that was being worked on a decade ago that involved stealing from people's dreams," Rushman said. "They hired these mercenaries to break into my thoughts, but I'm a lucid dreamer, and I remember everything."

"No one is breaking down our door, so it appears that telling Rushman everything was the right call," Arthur said. 

"It also means the program is about to go public as well. There isn't going to be any hiding it," Eames replied, and they turned back to look at each other. The program going public meant that there was going to be outrage, and the PASIV was about to become a conspiracy theory. Their entire industry was about to change. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur could see all the mercenaries that beat them getting arrested as well. "It's about to be a brave new world out there, darling, are you ready to face it with me?" 

"Come on, Mr. Eames," Arthur said as he leaned closer, so they were inches apart. "We can do anything."


End file.
